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Cyrille Regis RIP

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    #26
    Only saw Cyrille Regis for one season at Chester, his last before retirement, but even at that late stage of his career he was a class act. Two games stand out - the home game against Darlington where he ran rings around what was supposed to be the best defence in the division at the time, and the away match at Orient where he received a standing ovation from the whole ground when he was substituted. If he had managed to stay fit for the whole of that season we would have got promoted. It's not an understatement to say it really was a privilege to see him in a Chester shirt.

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      #27
      Richard Williams


      Regis was a player worth driving to another town to watch. So was Cunningham. You knew that, whatever the outcome, you’d be seeing something to remember.
      If you were more or less the same age as Regis, there was a chance that you might have grown up loving the music of Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix. And if that was how you felt, it was easy to welcome the arrival of black footballers, in the belief that they might have something to add to the English game. After all Pelé, at that point the greatest player in the history of the game, was black. So were Jairzinho and other great Brazilians. If there was a chance that the benefits from Commonwealth immigration could include the addition of a new dimension to the game as played by Nobby Stiles, Peter Storey and Norman Hunter, it seemed like something to be celebrated.

      And yet, 40 years ago, few English managers trusted black players, whom they saw as athletes rather than footballers.

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        #28
        This is almost unbearably poignant but needs to be seen :

        Brian Deane breaks down during Regis tribute

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          #29
          Thanks for posting that.

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            #30
            Shit, Cyrille Regis was probably the best loved person in West Midlands football. He was a great guy.

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              #31
              Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
              This is almost unbearably poignant but needs to be seen :

              Brian Deane breaks down during Regis tribute
              Thanks for that, Ray. It sums it all up - not least that he was one of the hardest looking footballers going. As you said, an icon.

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                #32
                A crying shame.
                One of the good guys.

                Apparently he was also eligible to play for France.

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
                  This is almost unbearably poignant but needs to be seen :

                  Brian Deane breaks down during Regis tribute
                  This is it really, a great tribute from Brian Deane.

                  If you haven't yet I'd strongly recommend the Paul Rees book.

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                    #34
                    As a pre-teen/teenager in the early 80s growing up in Jersey, I was unaware of the racism black players faced. Football and music were two of my passions back then, and I always associated Cyrille Regis with Two Tone, so he was always a hero.
                    RIP, Cyrille.

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                      #35
                      Originally posted by Dav O'Roso View Post
                      A crying shame.
                      One of the good guys.

                      Apparently he was also eligible to play for France.
                      He was born in French Guyana and had a few French clubs interested in him at one point.

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                        #36
                        On the old WSC board there was a piece on the classic WBA win (3-5) at Old Trafford. Gerald Sinstadt condemns the racist booing, something that commentators rarely did back then.

                        Sometimes I get all conspiracy theory about old TV footage - if it's a "classic match" or a club's DVD you can't help wondering if the sound has been re-edited. Any number of "Roads to Wembley" included monkey chants in the 70s and 80s.

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                          #37
                          Farewell from The Throstletariat

                          The West Brom archivist says goodbye to "the man who had changed his country, like Nelson Mandela but with a better right foot"

                          It was symbolic, albeit accidental, that he – and Brendon and Laurie – did it just up the road from where post-war Britain reached its nadir, in Smethwick, at the 1964 General Election where the Conservative candidate won the seat with help of campaign literature that declaimed, “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour”.

                          Ours is also a football ground that lies atop the Birmingham Road which leads to the centre of the city a handful of miles away, where Enoch Powell gave his notorious “rivers of blood” speech in April 1968. That Cyrille Regis should be parachuted into such a place, less than ten years later, well, it makes you think that there is such a thing as divine intervention after all.

                          For Cyrille was the kind of man who disarmingly dismantled all of those foaming prejudices simply by virtue of the man he was. Genuine, honest, full of life, a fully paid up member of the one race that counts, the human race.

                          His personality alone must have given countless people pause for thought, caused them to look again at Powell’s incendiary rhetoric and shake their heads at yesterday’s man, while tacking a poster of Cyrille Regis – the future’s man – on the wall.

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                            #38
                            Too young. An absolute legend in the Midlands. The shit he and other black players had to tolerate back in the seventies was appalling,and he faced it with real dignity. Sadly the authorities back then just pretended it wasn't happening.

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                              #39
                              Poor Brian Deane. It's never easy when your hero dies, but this has clearly hit him like a runaway train.

                              RIP Big Cyrille, you bloody legend you.

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                                #40
                                I just felt numb when I read the news this morning. My absolute hero. My first ever hero. And only 59. I thought I'd compose myself enough to write something meaningful about what he meant to me and my life by this evening but no. I've avoided listening to any tributes on the radio. And I tried to watch the Atkinson one online but only got a couple of seconds in. Didn't even try with the Brian Deane one. Maybe at the weekend. What I do want to do is to get to any memorial that is planned for him. And the next home game isn't until early February but I'll definitely be there. Rest In Peace, Cyrille.

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                                  #41
                                  Hope you manage to write something, Jon. We knew him from afar. You watched him every week.

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by Antepli Ejderha View Post
                                    He was born in French Guyana and had a few French clubs interested in him at one point.
                                    Very close to signing for St Etienne, according to his nephew Jason Roberts.

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                                      #43
                                      Another thank you Ray for those excellent words from poor devastated Brian Deane.

                                      Lovely thread all.

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                                        #44
                                        When I watched his highlight reel, this was the goal which had been sitting there in my subconscious all those years.

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                                          #45
                                          I can remember we beat Villa 2-1 on New Years Day 1992. Regis was getting on a bit, but still had the pace and power to burst through and thump home his customary goal against us. There were Norwich fans applauding that goal where I was sitting.

                                          I don't know any fans of the clubs he played for, but everyone I've spoken to seems genuinely upset at this news. However, I'm glad he's been widely acknowledged for his huge influence in the game as well as his tremendous ability.

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                                            #46
                                            Squires' cartoon this week is a lovely Regis tribute.

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                                              #47
                                              Even managed to get a customary obscure (to me) reference. What is the reference to the media having a pop at the footballer buying his own house?

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                                                #48
                                                I saw Regis just the other week at the unveiling ceremony for the statue of Laurie Cunningham that now stands proudly in the park behind the South Stand at Leyton Orient. He looked fine, and was approachable to all. It's a terrible loss.

                                                And yeah, echoing Cota on that late-career cameo at Chester, his performance for them at Orient that time in the mid-90s was one of the most, if not the most, memorable opposing player performances I've ever seen at Brisbane Road. That unanimous standing ovation is a lasting memory.

                                                A great and important figure in the history of our game

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                                                  #49
                                                  My memory has him single handedly destroying Rochdale at Spotland that season*. A quick check through the stats tells me he scored just the 1 goal though I'm certain he had a hand in a couple more.

                                                  The previous time I'd seen him play was possibly my first experience of top flight football. I studied at Coventry Poly and for some reason I stood with the Liverpool fans at Highfield Road the season Coventry went on to win the cup. There were probably more racists than there was overt racism as such on the terraces at Rochdale back then so this was a new experience for me in more ways than one. The abuse hurled at Coventry's black players was unrelenting. To not just have to deal with that week in week out but by sheer force of personality to rise above it is a mark of a very special person, of whom among England's black footballers back then there were of course many.

                                                  *I'd like to say he was given a standing ovation by the home fans but it pleases me at least to say that the only player from the away team I've seen receive that accolade was another black player, Dion Dublin playing for Norwich.

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                                                    #50
                                                    I'll have to let that Dave Bowler tribute on the WBA official site speak for me, as it's pretty much impossible to articulate anything. This is a great thread though, and there've been some lovely tributes too on local media threads, including a lot from Villa and Wolves fans. I remember him coming on for Wolves in the 93/94 derby - the first Albion-Wolves meeting since our relegation in 90/91, and a very fevered occasion - and getting a wonderful ovation from both sets of fans.

                                                    Re Brian Deane, I remember Sheffield United, or rather him and Agana, destroying Albion on the opening day of the 89/90 season. I don't think Albion fans gave them an ovation like Orient fans did Cyrille, though we should have done. And we should do now for that clip linked to above.

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